Abducted At Age 4, Chinese Man Finds Birth Family After 21 Years, Cuts Ties With Adoptive Parents

More than 20 years after he was taken from his family as a small child, a Chinese man has finally found his way back home and made the life-altering decision to walk away from the family that raised him. Calling the moment a fresh beginning, he has described the reunion as nothing short of a personal rebirth.According to a report by the South China Morning Post, 26-year-old Peng Congcong, who was born in Jiangxi province in southeastern China, shared a deeply emotional post online on December 12, marking one year since he reconnected with his biological parents.A Childhood StolenPeng recounted that his family had shifted to Beijing when he was four years old. One day, while he was playing alone near a market, he was enticed away and kidnapped.

His disappearance shattered his parents’ lives. They immediately filed a missing complaint, pasted notices everywhere and continued searching relentlessly for the next 21 years.Meanwhile, Peng was brought up by another family in Jiangsu province in eastern China, where he grew up under a different identity, Zhang Kun. Some media outlets in mainland China have referred to this family as the “buyer”, though Peng has neither confirmed nor commented publicly on this claim.Also Read: 'Kacha Badam' Singer Bhuban Badyakar — From Peanut Seller To Internet Sensation: Where Is He Today? DNA Brings AnswersAs reported, police informed Peng last December that he was not originally from Jiangsu but from Jiangxi, and that his biological family had traced him through DNA matching. Soon after, he travelled to Beijing, where he finally reunited with his parents and his two elder sisters.Peng said that his family took him back to the old market area where he had lived as a child, pointing out places he once knew. A few days later, they returned together to Jiangxi. There, villagers welcomed him with fireworks, a grand feast and heartfelt celebrations. Relatives prepared red envelopes and a cake to honour his return.“This is what a real home feels like. With my parents’ care, my sisters by my side and my relatives’ blessings, I feel a sense of belonging deep inside me,” Peng wrote.Letting go of his old lifeAt the time he reunited with his birth family, Peng’s entire life — his job, friends, house and car — was based in Jiangsu. After the reunion, he resigned from his job, shifted his household registration and sold both his house and car.“These things do not belong to me. So I returned them,” he said.Speaking during a live stream, Peng clarified that the house had been purchased by his adoptive parents, while he had paid for the renovations. He then completely severed ties in Jiangsu and moved back to Jiangxi to begin again.Healing, purpose and the road aheadPeng has described 2025 as his “rebirth year”, shaped by love, recovery and reunion. “For the past 20 years, my parents lived with guilt and pain. Now I take them travelling and try good food with them. I want to make up, bit by bit, for the time the years stole from us,” he wrote.Since returning home, Peng has started volunteering to help other families searching for missing children. He now earns a living by selling household products through social media and donated all the earnings from his first live stream to the missing-children charity Baby Come Home.